One of our clients wanted an export of the content that was in their Content Management System, in the form of a CSV file. When asked why they needed it they replied they wanted to translate the content, then give it back to us so we could import back into the system. When asked why they couldn't just use the CMS to do that, they said using a CMS is too complicated for a translating agency. This is already a WTF, but hey, they are the client, if they want to pay for it.... even after we warned them multiple times this isn't a good idea...
Ok, so eventually we agreed to export the data. (yes I know, giving a client a CSV file is a WTF)
We created a CSV file with 3 colums, the project ID, the item ID, and the content. That way we could use the CSV to update the existing fields in the database. We explained them it was very important we got the file back with all the records intact. We warned them multiple times not to touch the ID coulumns, and not to swap the order of the content... only translate the content fields.
I knew this would go wrong.... and after 2 weeks of silence we got the mail we we all waiting for... Our client had opened the CSV file in excell, selected the content column. Copied it (as 1 long string), pasted it into notepad, and saved it as 1 HTML file (because... the translation agancy had asked them for HTML). Offcourse this"html" file was a big pile of garbage.... but the translation agency went ahead and translated that monster file...
Now our client sends us that "HTML" file and asks us to import it back into the database!!! Oh my... !